People in the News -- June

In recent months, a number of AAFP members have received various honors and awards.

AAFP Past President Richard Roberts, M.D., J.D., of Madison, Wis., has been installed as president of the World Organization of Family Doctors, also known as WONCA.

Roberts' election marks the third time that an American and an AAFP member has been named president of WONCA. Roberts served as AAFP president in 2000-01.

WONCA is the largest family physician organization in the world, representing 116 member colleges, academies and organizations from 96 countries.

In addition, Daniel Ostergaard, M.D., AAFP vice president for professional activities, has been elected WONCA North American regional president. He succeeds AAFP member Alain Montegut, M.D., of Portland, Maine.

Residents are chosen for their demonstrated leadership ability, civic involvement and social commitment, exemplary patient care skills, and aptitude for and interest in family medicine. Winners receive $1,000; complimentary registration, airfare and lodging to attend the 2010 AAFP Scientific Assembly in Denver; and other recognition. The award program is funded by pharmaceutical manufacturer Bristol-Myers Squibb.

The Government Accountability Office, or GAO, has appointed three family physicians to a 15-member advisory board that will make recommendations to HHS on grants and loans to establish nonprofit, member-run health plans to serve the individual and small-group markets. Those physicians are David Carlyle, M.D., co-medical director of Homeward Hospice in Ames, Iowa, and chair of Iowa's legislative Health Care Coverage Commission; David Buck, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor in the department of family and community medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston; and Michael Pramenko, M.D., a family physician and president-elect of the Colorado Medical Society in Grand Junction, Colo.

According to a June 23 GAO press release(www.gao.gov), the Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan, or CO-OP, Program was created as a result of the recently enacted Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The CO-OP Program must award all grants and loans by July 1, 2013, and may continue its work until December 2015.

Carlyle is co-medical director of Homeward Hospice in Ames and chair of Iowa's Legislative Health Care Coverage Commission. He also served on the state's Legislative Commission on Affordable Health Care Plans for Small Businesses and Families.

The American Board of Family Medicine, or ABFM, Board of Directors elected four new officers during the ABFM's spring board meeting. Craig Czarsty, M.D., of Oakville, Conn., was named board chair; Warren Newton, M.D., of Chapel Hill, N.C., was named chair-elect; John Bucholtz, D.O., of Columbus, Ga., was named treasurer; and Arlene Brown, M.D., of Ruidoso, N.M., was named member-at large on the board's executive committee. Each will serve a one-year term.

In addition, the ABFM board welcomed three new members: family physician Alan David, M.D., of Milwaukee, chair of the department of family medicine and associate dean for faculty affairs at the Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; FP Carlos Jaen, M.D., Ph.D., of San Antonio, chair of the department of family medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio; and Kailie Shaw, M.D., professor emeritus of psychiatry in the department of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at the University of South Florida College of Medicine in Tampa. Each member will serve a five-year term.